ROADS TO FREEDOM
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• The late Earl of Stockton, "Supermac" Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to those old enough to remember him, certainly had a way with words.
His famous "selling off the family silver" speech, referring to the Conservative Government's obsession with raffling state-owned assets, is highly appropriate to this week's lead story. After British Steel, British Gas and British Telecom we could now have British Motorways plc — courtesy of the Department of Transport which is understood to be considering privatising Britain's motorway network.
Selling off Britain's motorways would certainly make some money — up to £10bn according to the DOT's beancounters — at a time when the Treasury is facing a soaring financial deficit.
Of course if the UK's motorways were privatised they'd end up as toll roads. Why else would anyone buy them if not to earn a whacking great profit by charging drivers to use them?
So road hauliers, currently paying more than enough Vehicle Excise Duty to cover their allocated track costs, would next have to cough up for the privilege of driving up the M1 to Sheffield. What nonsense.
There might, however, be a silver lining to this grey cloud. Presumably even a Conservative Government wouldn't have the nerve to sell the motorway network and then still charge Vehicle Excise Duty.
Motorway privatisation could finally force the Government to scrap VED and come up with a fairer system of revenue collection based on an increased fuel tax — the ultimate "pay as you go" (see Sound Off, page 40).
But what it can't get away with is creating the situation where hauliers get stung on VED, stung on fuel tax and then are made to pay to use the same motorways they've been subsidising for the past 33 years. No haulier worth his mettle is going to wear that triple whammy.